Urban greenhouse
SuperSpatial - Urban Greenhouse Proposal for Europan 14 - Site of Narvik - NO
The project originates from two conditions, the former already present, the latter planned for the near future.
The first condition is that Bromsgård park has been opened to the public, and the city is now facing a need to rethink its relationship to it.
The second is that the E6 highway will be deviated to a tunnel, thus aiming at transforming Kongens gate into a urban boulevard.
The natural consequence of these two changes will lead to the transformation of the old, well defined, private garden into a new linear park. Flowing throughout the city, the Kongens gate will become a new green infrastructure, acting as means of connection between the main public elements of the city.
Different public spaces and important scenes of the urban life are located along the green flow, that behaves as connection by keeping them together and bringing new quality to the city center. Every activity or institution that is located on the new infrastructure assumes an important public character and becomes open to inhabitants and visitors.
The same happens to the new topographic surface that holds together the buildings of the former technical quarter. Even if the different buildings can host different private functions, as research centers, offices, teaching rooms, student houses, the main character of the building is definitely public and the ground floor becomes a new square in the middle of the green boulevard.
To create a space for public life in every season the main square is covered by a greenhouse in ETFE material that creates a covered space, open to different activities and possibilities. The technical and scientific research becomes a part of the public life. Some cultural activities like the auditorium or the dance school are integrated in the complex, colonizing the building of the former Fire department and preserving its structure. The students become an active element of the project, living in the new student houses, that are suspended on the former garages, used as research labs.
The spaces are meant to be flexible in order to host different activities and to mirror the changes in the economy of Narvik.
What arises from the proposal is the intention to create a space that is open to a diversification of activities and possibilities, being public in its character; with the aim of making the technical research quarter a new fundamental and essential element of the public life of the city.